Reckless Driving

Liberal Democratic Party decided to take votes on eleven bills for new security legislation without participation of the opposite parties in the House of Representatives. It is possible, because LDP and its coalition partner, Komeito, occupies two-thirds of majority in the House. But a great majority of the people showed firm opposition against the bills in the polls. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe keeps on reckless drive in his administration for his personal conviction to rewrite the post-war history of Japan.

In the meeting of party representatives of Special Committee for Peace and Security Legislation on Tuesday, LDP proposed to take votes on the bills on Wednesday. Chairman, Yasukazu Hamada, dismissed the demand of the opposite parties, including Democratic Party of Japan, Innovation Party or Communist Party, to continue discussion and decided the schedule for taking votes, exercising his authoritarian power for procedure.

Deeply frustrated, the opposite parties are not going to participate in the session for taking votes. The Democrats and Communists will be walking out from committee room after certain period of discussion on Wednesday. Innovation Party, having rejected its own alternative bills by LDP, will wholly be absent in the discussion and voting on Wednesday.

LDP has no toleration to listen to the opposite opinions. After a meeting with President of Innovation Party, Yorihisa Matsuno, Chairman of House of Representatives, Tadamori Oshima, asked LDP to take good care of the opposite opinion, only resulted in being ignored. Minister of Local Revitalization, Shigeru Ishiba, unusually expressed his concern on the decision of taking votes, saying “I’m not sure whether all the talking points were discussed.” Abe administration is also going to ignore this contradiction within the Cabinet.

The main reason why the opposites require more discussion is uncertainty of measures Japanese government will face in actual contingency. In an imaginary case of North Korea striking American vessels with missile, Abe answered that Japan’s retaliatory measures would be recognized as unilateral attack in the concept of individual self-defense. However, he told that Japan could attack North Korea without any actual strike, if the North had possessed intention and capability of striking Japan. Well, it is a typical unilateral offense, Mr. Prime Minister, as long as “intention” is determined by someone else.

It is obvious that the government has no concrete idea on actual cases. Controlled bureaucrats, Abe keeps on saying, “It’s up to general decision of the government.” There is no rule of law in his mind so far as security legislature is concerned. It is inevitable that Japanese government will be appalled in quagmire of endless argument in a moment its allies want immediate help as it did in the past.